


Bound Hands, Loose Lips

by Yulicia



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale is just enough of a bastard, General tomfoolery, Kidnapping, Light-Hearted, M/M, aziraphale talks a lot and crowley's not there to stop him this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-20 00:23:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20666255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yulicia/pseuds/Yulicia
Summary: “You don’t need to worry your pretty little angel head about a thing. I have it all under control.”How reassuring, Aziraphale thought.His demonic captor continued. “All you have to do is sit there quietly.”Aziraphale gave a forced smile. The demon smiled back, flashing teeth once more. It was incredibly unsettling, though that was likely the entire point. Generally speaking demons aren’t supposed to look like people you’d want to invite in for tea.The demons eyes flicked down to Aziraphale’s wrists. “Comfortable?”“Perfectly,” Aziraphale replied.





	Bound Hands, Loose Lips

It was a rather average day. The sky was heavy with fluffy white clouds and the sun peaked out from behind them, casting a soft warmth upon the earth. The wind was not a great gust but nor was it stagnant. The trees swayed ever so lightly in the breeze. Birds chirped happily in their trees and worms wiggled wildly beneath the soil as if listening to some funky tunes. 

The Bentley, also having an average day, was playing Queen softly as it’s demonic driver pushed it’s engine well beyond its realistic limits. The Bentley did not mind. It liked being fast and was glad it’s strange sentience allowed it to appreciate the thrill of speed. As the humans would say -  _ kachow. _

As Crowley and the Bentley whizzed around a corner the music suddenly stopped, the crooning of Freddie Mercury suddenly cut short. 

“Hello Crowley,” the speakers spoke in the very voice it had halted the singing of.

Crowley frowned, staring down at the car’s interior. Peculiar. He hadn’t been expecting a call for the next… ever. 

“Who’s this?” 

The voice of Mercury laughed. “Do you not remember me?”

Crowley wracked his brain. Nup. Nothing. “Uh, ‘fraid not, sorry. What do you want?” 

“Oh, it’s not what  _ I _ want but what you want.”

Crowley rolled his eyes, hidden behind his glasses as they were. He was already terribly bored of the supervillain-esque speech but at least said speech confirmed his suspicion that the occupant of Freddie’s voice was one who’d crawled directly out of Hell. His lot had quite the love of long, complicated, and threatening speeches. 

“Uh huh. Anyway, I’m busy. Bye-bye.” Crowley reached towards the radio controls, fumbling for the dial that would let him hang up on whoever his was.

The voice tutted. “You’ll want to hear me out, Crowley.”

Crowley huffed. “Then get on with it.”

There was a sudden fuzz of static and Crowley cringed at the sound. He heard shuffling followed by a soft groan and then the voice on the radio changed. 

“Oh dear. Where… oh that’s a bit sore… am I?” The voice was soft and familiar and terribly angelic and immediately set a fire ablaze in Crowley’s chest. 

“That better not be who I think it is,” Crowley hissed. The steering wheel creaked beneath the sudden squeeze of Crowley’s fingers. 

Freddie’s voice returned. “Oh, it most certainly is. Caught myself an angel. I wonder what this’ll score me down below, huh?” 

Crowley’s fists grew tighter around the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. “If you’ve touched a single hair on his head—“

The voice giggled. “Oh, I’ve not hurt him. Well, yet, anyway, that could always change. Perhaps you can play knight in shining armour? I hear you’re quite good at that. See you soon, Crowley.”

And then the voice was gone and the jaunty tune of Queen’s  _ Seaside Rendezvous  _ resumed. Crowley pounded his fist on the dashboard.

_ “Shit.” _

* * *

When Aziraphale stirred he awoke to a terrible pounding in his head and the smell of blood curled deep into his nostrils. His blood, he assumed, feeling wetness tickling his upper lip.

He opened his eyes to find himself in a terribly spooky warehouse, as was tradition with kidnappings. The wind seemed to bellow outside as the flimsy windows rattled in their frames. 

“Oh dear.” Aziraphale squinted into the dark warehouse and saw a figure lurking in the dark. His captor, most likely. 

“Where..” He’d begun to ask before his head gave a particularly painful throb. “Oh that’s a bit sore… am I?” 

The figure ignored him. They stayed still for a while, talking on a phone too quietly for Aziraphale to hear. His ears felt like they were full of cotton and there was a horrible ringing in his left one which certainly didn’t improve his hearing by any means. 

After a few minutes the figure slunk closer, stepping into a patch of dull light. As they grew close Aziraphale could immediately smell Hell on him. It was a smell of tar and soot and brimstone all mariated in one big pot to create a stench of generalised Evil. 

“Ah,” said Aziraphale. “And who might you be?” 

An awful smile curled upon the demon’s lips. “That is of no importance to you.”

Aziraphale’s expression grew flat, his lips pressing together. “I see.” 

The demon seemed pleased with his response. Their smile grew and revealed sharp teeth akin to those of a piranha. 

Aziraphale sniffed huffily. “May I know why I’m here?” 

The demon laughed and shook his head. 

“Right. Of course.” 

The demon inched closer, moving in a strangely fluid way. It was if they’d forgotten to give their human form bones. 

“You don’t need to worry your pretty little angel head about a thing. I have it all under control.”

_ How reassuring _ , Aziraphale thought. 

The demon continued. “All you have to do is sit there quietly.” 

Aziraphale gave his captor a forced smile. The demon smiled back, flashing teeth once more. It was incredibly unsettling, though that was likely the entire point. Generally speaking demons aren’t supposed to look like people you’d want to invite in for tea.

The demons eyes flicked down to Aziraphale’s wrists. “Comfortable?”

Aziraphale shifted, tugging at the ropes. They had some sort of binding spell on them that he couldn’t miracle out of. Clearly his captor had done their homework. 

“Perfectly,” Aziraphale replied. 

The demon grinned.

* * *

_ Don’t panic _ , Crowley told himself as he panicked. Aziraphale was probably fine and it probably wasn’t the smartest idea to rush into this demon’s hands completely unprepared. 

_ But what if he wasn’t? _ the traitorous part of his mind said. He’d seen what demons could do to angels and all of the possibilities made his stomach twist. He’d wish none of their practices on any angel (alright  _ maybe _ Gabriel) and he certainly was less than pleased to imagine them happening to  _ his _ angel. 

Crowley could feel that Aziraphale was still on Earth and could feel the very faintest residue of his grace somewhere up north. It was not as strong as it normally was. That thought did nothing to quell his nerves.

The Bentley sped on ahead. 

* * *

There were some downsides to being kidnapped. The first, of course, being that you had been kidnapped. The second was that being kidnapped was _so_ _boring. _

Aziraphale had been watching his demonic captor pace the warehouse for what felt like hours but in reality had only been about half of one. The demon’s footsteps echoed along the floor and the constant  _ tap tap tap _ of his shoes was beginning to drive Aziraphale a little batty. 

Why was he even here? The demon didn’t seem to want to kill him. The only thing he could be was… ah. It hit him then that he was bait. The demon didn’t want him at all. He wanted Crowley.

Well this was a right pickle. Not only did this inconvenient kidnapping make him miss their dinner date it was now actively trying to get said date killed. Aziraphale was not, however, worried. Crowley had escaped the ire of many a demon before and he was sure he could do it again. It was just quite annoying that now Aziraphale had to be a part of it - though he was a little flattered that this demon thought him worthy of being bait.

They had been planning to go to a lovely little upmarket Italian place that’d just opened not far from the bookshop. They had been going to order the crab linguine and a half a dozen oysters, paired with a lovely bottle of chardonnay. They had planned to spend the night in each others company, growing drunker and happier by the minute.

Instead he was here. Strapped to a chair in a freezing cold warehouse. His stomach growled, crying out not in true hunger but at the loss of something that had meant to be. He was silently berating himself for getting captured but he’d been so involved helping a sweet young German lady catch her bus that he hadn’t expected the shovel that had smacked him the back of the head. 

“Is there any chance you’d consider letting me go?”

The demon’s head swung to look at him. He stared down at Aziraphale.

“‘No.”

“I thought as much,” Aziraphale grumbled. He tugged absentmindedly at the ropes. They were tight and really quite uncomfortable. “I’m missing dinner, you know.”

“What?” said the demon. 

“I had plans. You’ve utterly ruined them, honestly.” 

The demon said nothing but looked generally unremorseful. 

“How long is this going to take?” Aziraphale complained. 

The demon tapped his nails against a nearby table. Aziraphale mentally added it to the ever growing list of annoying sounds he’d heard today. 

“As long as it takes Crowley to get here,” the demon replied.

“Oh, well, that’s good. He’s usually quite punctual.” 

The demon raised an eyebrow. 

“Always arrives at exactly the moment he is needed. Have I told you about the whole flaming car thing? It was quite impressive and actually rather a good example of what I mean.”

The demon stared. “What the Heaven are you on about?” 

“The Apocalypse, of course! You really have been down below a little too long, my dear,” said Aziraphale, using dear in precisely the opposite way he’d use it for Crowley. Where Crowley would get all the gooey affection that came with the word this demon received the cold disgust of a mother scolding her dim-witted child. “As I was saying… He has quite the flair for the dramatics. I tell him to meet me at the airbase and the next I see of him he’s stepping out of a flaming vehicle! I can’t imagine what he must have driven through to get the thing in such a state but if I’m on the money - and I usually am - it was probably hellfire.”

The demon stood slack-jawed at the absolute avalanche of information Aziraphale was throwing at him. Aziraphale hid his smile. 

“And isn’t that just the maddest thing? To have literally driven through fire to save the world? It was something out of one of the more exuberant fantasy novels in my collection for sure,” Aziraphale continued. “Perhaps I could write our adventures down? Well, maybe not all of them, I must keep some secrets, of course. I shan’t go blabbing anything about the 17th century to the general public - now  _ that _ is a recipe for disaster.”

Aziraphale gave a sly wink and the demon watching him grew even more confused. They were ramrod still as if they didn’t quite know what was happening. 

“Ah, who am I fooling, I’m no writer. I’ll leave that particular past time to humanity. Ever since the beginning of time they’ve always been quite good at creating stories. I admit that sometimes I can be quite envious of their skill. There is such understanding in some of those minds it’s a shame that they are so short lived. Ah, but of course, their writing will outlive them yet in the pages they become immortal. Isn’t that a charming thought?”

“What are you doing?” The demon asked. There was a hint of fear in their voice and Aziraphale savoured it. It was amazing what not shutting up could get you. 

“Entertaining myself, I suppose. Have you any idea how dull sitting here is? I might as well fill the time with  _ something _ .” 

The demon grew silent once more.

“Oh, but back to Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed. “Back in the Garden I had had my doubts about him but he’s shown himself to be quite a nice demon. He is the nicest demon I have ever met - but don’t tell him that though or he’ll get rather pouty about it. It’s true though, as much as the old serpent hates to admit it.” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “He’s quite the adversary, too, of course. Certainly kept me on my toes! I’ve heard he received some great praises from the big bosses downstairs for his inventions, is that true?”

Aziraphale waited patiently for an answer. The demon’s eyes had seemed to have glazed over.

“Huh?”

“I said “I’ve heard be received some great praises from the big bosses downstairs for his inventions, is that true?”

“Who?” 

“Crowley! Have you been listening to me at all?” Aziraphale huffed. Then, with all the guilting power of a primary school teacher scolding a misbehaving class he said, “It’s quite rude to not listen to someone when they are speaking, especially someone you quite literally have tied up, my dear.”

“Sorry,” said the demon as he shook his head in confusion. What was he apologising for? 

“I never approved of those little nuisances he did - sordid stuff the lot of it. He still does them, of course. I don’t think any entity from either Heaven or Hell could stop him glueing coins to the sidewalk. I just wish he’d stop doing it so close to the bookshop. Sometimes people stop and then want to come in. Dreadful business.”

“Speaking of the bookshop,” Aziraphale started. The demon looked pained. “Have you heard of a novel called  _ War and Peace _ ? Oh, no, of course not I forgot your kind doesn’t do books. No matter, I’ll just tell you what it’s about!” 

“Please don’t,” The demon groaned.

“So in the beginning…” 

* * *

As the traces of Aziraphale dissipated Crowley grew frantic. He had known that he would not be able to track the angel down with the pin-point accuracy he was used to but he had hoped that he’d have something better to go off of than  _ vaguely around this area _ . 

He pulled the Bentley over, parking over the yellow line by the curb. This was, Crowley quickly noticed as he looked around, not the nicest of places. He could feel a general sense of evil and discontent here and it was definitely man-made. There were several back alleys around here and not a single one of them didn’t look like somewhere you’d find a body. 

He tried for Aziraphale once more but still found nothing. That demon must have done something to him to cover his tracks. He wasn’t going to be able to find Aziraphale through supernatural means. He sighed, dropping his forehead against the steering wheel. He was going to have to look for him the human way. 

A woman passed by him on the street. She was in stiletto heels at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and her hair was a box-bleach blonde. Crowley opened the car door and stepped out into the pavement.

“Hey!” he yelled. 

The woman stopped and turned to look at him. Her eyes were darkened with black eyeliner and her lips were concealed with foundation so that they completely disappeared into her skin. It was certainly a look. 

“Oh my god, is that your real hair colour?” She exclaimed, bouncing towards him.

“Uh,” Crowley said, absently reaching up to run a hand through his hair. “Yeah, yeah it is. Have you seen a guy around here - blonde, about this high,” he waved his hand at the approximate hight of Aziraphale’s corperation, “Wearing a coat from 1858?” 

“Oh sure babes,” said the woman, “Hard to miss a bloke who looks like he escaped from bloody  _ Pride and Prejudice _ , ya know? Was with this other guy too, also weird lookin’.” 

Crowley’s heart jumped. He beat back the little Aziraphale shaped voice in his head that yelled  _ ‘that’s book’s not even the right century!’ _ “Did you see where he went?” 

The woman paused in thought, tapping her finger on her chin. “Oh yeah! Think I saw them slink down that alleyway over there all suspicious like.” She pointed across the street, directing him down a sidestreet with a dumpster taking up half of the entrance. She looked back to Crowley. “English teacher a friend of yours?”

Crowley shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, nervous energy flowing through him. “Yeah, you could say that.” 

Crowley turned away from the woman’s piercing eyes. 

“Aw, well, hope you find him okay,” the woman added. 

Turning towards the alleyway Crowley stepped out into the street, hailing for a car to stop. “Yeah, me too.”

* * *

“...And did you know that the Hans Christian Adersen originals of all those Disney classics were actually much darker? I remember getting my hands on his original manuscript for  _ The Little Mermaid _ ; gruesome stuff. It’s certainly not something I would be encouraging children to read!” 

The demon was covering their ears now. Aziraphale fought back the urge to grow smug. 

“Stop talking,” the demon begged. 

“Oh, but my dear I have so much to tell you! I know you’ve been below for a long time but there is culture you’re missing out on and it’s my duty to catch you up to speed.”

The demon began to pace once more. The smell of brimstone had grown stronger as Aziraphale’s verbal torment had continued. 

“Oh, and I must tell you about the food here! Humanity has done such wonderful things with the things they had been blessed with. Have you ever tasted a bread and butter pudding? So simple and yet truly wonderful! Even in Heaven you’ll find few things that can compare to a good dessert.” 

“Shut  _ up!”  _ The demon snapped. “That’s it!

There came a banging from the wall behind Aziraphale. The demon stood, storming past Aziraphale to what he imagined was the door. 

* * *

Crowley found the warehouse easily. The place was practically falling apart and he was sure that it was only by some small miracle that the walls were still standing. The walls were covered in uncreative graffiti and the panels rattled at every slight breeze.

As he grew close to the door he could smell Hell on this place. Yes, this was certainly the right place. 

Crowley pounded his fist against the door. “It’s me!” He yelled. “He still better be in one piece or I swear—“

The door flung open and inside stood the most exhausted demon Crowley had ever seen. Their shoulders were hunched and their soot black eyes looked as though they’d seen a thousand battles. 

“Take him,” the demon wheezed. They clicked their fingers and there came the sound of a chain breaking from inside. “He’s not worth it.”

The demon pushed back Crowley roughly, nearly sprinting away from the place. Crowley didn’t even have time to give him a piece of his mind before they had disappeared into the street, presumably to find a nice piece of woodland to go return down below discretely from. 

Crowley stepped cautiously into the warehouse and his heart jumped at that familiar tuft of white hair. 

“Aziraphale!” He exclaimed, rushing to the chair he had been tied to. 

Aziraphale was undoing the ropes around his wrists - now just regular white roping with the charm broken. He rubbed at his wrists and then turned at Crowley’s voice. He beamed. There was gold blood on his teeth.

“There you are,” Aziraphale smiled. “And right on time!”

Crowley frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing my dear.” Aziraphale stood and smoothed out his clothes. He held out a hand, prompting Crowley to take it. “Ready to go?”

“Uh, yeah, yeah sure. Let’s get out of here,” said Crowley. 

The pair made their way out of the warehouse and onto the road, quickly arriving at the parked Bentley. Crowley stopped on his side, leaning against the hood. 

“Say, angel,” said Crowley. Aziraphale paused as he opened the door to the passenger side. “What’d you do to that guy anyway? He looked like he’d sat just through a never ending screening of  _ The Sound of Music.” _

Aziraphale shrugged but there was a slight smile on his lips. “We talked.” 

Crowley raised a brow at that. “You talked?”

“Well, I talked,” Aziraphale conceded. “I talked quite a lot. It is not my fault they didn’t want to listen to any of it. And besides, they started it by kidnapping me in the first place.”

Crowley felt his heart grow fond.

Aziraphale gave him that same cheeky look he’d given as he’d confessed to asking the Archangel Michael for a towel. “Told me to shut up a few times.”

Crowley laughed. “You are such a bastard,” said Crowley and the  _ I love you so much _ came implied. 

**Author's Note:**

> if u would like to see this dumb shit happen live i'm @yulicia_ on [twitter](https://twitter.com/yulicia_)


End file.
